Interview Protocols

Here are our interview protocols we used when we conducted our interviews with lobbyists. The forms below list the questions we asked when we conducted our interviews. Respondents were assured anonymity, so we cannot release their individual responses. Information from the interviews was used, however, to guide our research on the web, through the Library of Congress, and in subsequent interviews. Our index of case files provides an overview of each case, based on all the information we collected (screened, of course, to ensure we do not reveal the identities of our respondents).

• Initial Interview Protocol: This is the protocol for the first interview, when we ask them to speak about the issue they worked on most recently. We then ask them to suggest names of other people who have worked on this issue.
• Follow Up Protocol: This is the protocol we used to contact interviewees 6 months after we contacted the initial interview. We use these interviews to see if anything has changed since we last spoke to them.

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